


sinking ship

by thefudge



Series: The Tale of the Body Thief (Snoke and Rey) [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Body Horror, Body snatching, Bodyswap, Dark Reylo, Death and the Maiden, Disturbing Themes, Dubious Consent, F/M, Power Dynamics, ambiguous attraction, it's not exactly reylo but it iiiiis in a sense, so maybe dark reylo?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 20:59:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16840321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefudge/pseuds/thefudge
Summary: It was time now; it had been time for a while. In a sense, his apprentice had given him the perfect window of opportunity. He ought to thank him for it.(Body-Jumping!Snoke) Snoke-as-Kylo/Rey.





	sinking ship

**Author's Note:**

> hey yall, remember how in 2015 there were all those cool theories about Snoke being an immortal Sith Lord whose secret was body-jumping (a twist on Darth Plagueis' powers) and he was basically grooming Kylo Ren for the next body-swap? Yeah, me too. Isn't it sad nothing came of that?  
> Well. Here's a whole series about it, ha. ha.  
> And for added benefit, you get some Trashy McTrash slice of Snoke/Rey, because yes, I am going there. Full steam ahead. Enjoy! (?)

They cannot take my crown from me.  
Here will I hide it in this simple hole.

Christopher Marlowe - _Tamburlaine The Great, part I_

***

Rey placed herself in a coffin.

She would not die yet. There would be a long funeral march ahead of her. It would be quite a while until she was buried.

These things take time.

She eased herself in the cargo pod because she knew she was delivery. The purpose of the glass case was to display her vulnerability. Be seen.

She wanted to show Ben Solo or Kylo Ren, or whoever he was, that she was coming in good faith. She had come to help him.

She was glad when his was the first face she saw as she landed in the enemy bay. He had been expecting her.

He stood over her coffin, his countenance prim, well-organized, resisting the anarchy in his features. There was something brutal in the setting of his bones. He had always seemed to her like a flint desperate for fire, burning from within, but now …now he appeared remote and cold. The coldness was not repelling, but it was different from what she knew.

He did not smile as he stared down at her. But she sensed great satisfaction in his dark, steady gaze.

She attempted a small smile. 

She couldn’t have known who was inside him.

Minutes before Rey arrived on the First Order flagship, Snoke summoned Kylo Ren to him for the last time.

“The girl is coming to me. I can sense it,” Kylo Ren murmured as he bowed before his master.

“Yes, she is. I sense it too. We shall see what your mettle is made of, my apprentice. This shall be a good test of your abilities.”

“I will not fail you, Supreme Leader,” Ren said, prostrating himself consummately.

Snoke believed him. Snoke believed that Ren believed _this_ of himself, at least. In the end, Ben Solo had always been a dutiful boy.

“I expect you will not. I expect the both of us will get it right the first time.”

Kylo raised his head an inch. “The both of us?”

“You are not alone in this, my boy. And you have never been.” Words of comfort. Words which would have overjoyed a younger Kylo Ren, but all they did now was seed dread in his stomach.

“Yes, Supreme Leader.”

“Come closer now. Let me see your thoughts for the last time before she arrives.”

Kylo Ren obeyed, thinking – foolishly – that he had managed to obscure his treacherous inclination towards the girls. There was a kind of youthful pride in this. Snoke smiled as he placed his hand over his apprentice’s full set of dark hair. His gnarled fingers weaved through the soft locks and then traced his pulsing temples, the lining of his cheek. There was still some baby-fat there. He had not yet become ascetic. Snoke’s smile widened. Oh yes, what a strapping, beautiful boy. He was ready.

He tipped Kylo’s chin up. “I am quite satisfied, Lord Ren.”

His apprentice exulted briefly. He had fooled his master.

But Snoke had seen it all in a flash; when asked to kill the little scavenger, his faithful acolyte had chosen to kill his master instead.

Snoke had explained to him once that Sith Lords could not see the future, not exactly. They could not see the fine pattern of the universe in motion, for it was always changing, but they could see the pattern of men, their wants, their desires, their secret villainies. The Sith could see the future that was _desired_ , if not entirely obtained. A possibility, one in many. It is true that the Force suggested which of these possibilities was strongest and most desired, but that did not mean that future would come to be.

A lesson Kylo Ren had not fully assimilated. More’s the pity.

It was time now; it had been time for a while. In a sense, his apprentice had given him the perfect window of opportunity. He ought to thank him for it. 

When Snoke seized him by the throat and forced him to look into his eyes - to _really_ look into his master's decay - Kylo Ren did not have time for shock or fear.

He only had time for a gasp, an exhale of breath, a death and rebirth.

Rey could not feel her wrists anymore. The shackles dug into her skin until her nerves were senseless.

The elevator was climbing steadily.

She stared intently at Kylo Ren who stood unmoved, unmoving, unmovable. Like a monument to some long-lost deity.

And yet, because he was so static, everything around him seemed to vibrate. 

If in their Force-bonding he had seemed uncertain and volatile, there was now something resolute, almost swaggering about him. As if he were pleased with himself.

So, her fate had been decided.

She licked her lips. “Please tell me you haven’t made up your mind, Ben.”

The familiar name drew his cauldron eyes to her, but his reaction was almost sedated. “I’m afraid I have.”

Rey took a step closer. “Let me talk to you. I know you have been told what to do all your life. You've been delivered from one master to another. I am offering you a choice.”

Snoke regarded her with infinite amusement, though he did not let it show. Yes, the girl’s passion gave her words some eloquence, in spite of her naivety. The Force breathed through her like the wind in the sails. He had lived long enough, jumping from body to body, to have seen the great ages of mortality when people still took to the sea openly. He remembered the taste of sea spray on his lips, thick creature oil pooling at his feet. What creatures? Oh, so many. He had hunted solitary whales in Naboo, had feasted on the carcasses of gundarks in Yavin, had ridden and domesticated and finally consumed a whole herd of proud bloodfins in Bastion.

This girl, her unspoiled power, her dirty nails and flesh, the oil boiling inside her – she would be one of his creatures.

He had no doubt she tasted like salt.

He would find out, eventually.

“I am offering you freedom, freedom from Snoke, freedom from the mistakes of the past…” she carried on, coming closer and closer.

Rey noticed his body had turned to her, almost as if he meant to open his arms and seize her.

Was he wrestling with himself? His features grew darker, stormier – still cold, but hungry.

Could she step closer? Would he let her?

She felt his soft intake of breath, felt the tension rippling between them, a third, disembodied body between them. The ghost of his younger self? What was it?

And then, before she could think about it more, his hand was on her shoulder. The contact jolted her, the power inside her veins set to boiling.

Kylo Ren gripped her shoulder and turned her around until she faced the elevator doors which were parting.

“I have a gift for you, Rey.”

As gifts went, this one was gluttony. It was overwhelming. 

So was the putrid smell coming off from the dais.

Rey covered her mouth with her palm. Her stomach heaved. Her feet moved forward without her assent. She was daydreaming, surely.

Supreme Leader Snoke still sat on his throne, but he had been cut in half at the middle and his trunk and legs had consequently trailed to the floor like gelatin. Sickly maroon blood flowed copiously from his bowels.

Around his throne, like scattered petals, a dozen praetorian guards lay with their throats slit or their limbs asunder.

The carnage was violent, yet almost staged. Almost as if it had been waiting for her to witness it.

Rey stepped back and collided into Ren’s solid chest. His gloved fingers landed on her arms, steadying her.

“It’s all right,” he murmured, lowering his head, his lips almost tracing the shell of her ear. “I did what I had to do.”

Rey whipped around, eyes wide. “When you said your mind was made up…”

Snoke made his apprentice nod. “I struggled with the notion…but in the end, the road was clear. I achieved clarity. Thanks to you.”

“Thanks to me?”

“My master meant to kill you. I couldn’t allow it.”

Rey was horrified, elated, and disturbed. The bloodshed was in her name and it scalded her, made her feel ashamed. At the same time she was overjoyed that he had seen the – was it the _light_? No, maybe not the light, but he had seen a way _out_ of this.

And he had saved her life. He had done it for her, chosen _her_.

The feeling in her belly was foreign and wonderful, though suspicions and fears crowded her mind.

Suddenly, Kylo took hold of her wrists. “I will need your hands free. More praetorian guards are coming. They must know what I’ve done by now. Will you help me fight them, Rey?”

Her momentary aversion was set completely aside. Not only had he chosen her, but he was placing himself in her _hands_. He trusted her and needed her.

An orphan of the desert craved nothing more. 

At the end of it, the floor was strewn with the hard red carapace of two dozen more praetorian guards. It had been a fugue, this fight. She had been carried away with it and he had watched her body flung in a pool of savagery.

His apprentice had been right in his estimations. She was like a blunt, crude grappling hook. A coarse hatchet that hit and hit and _hit_ until she split you in half.

She had none of the poise, the dexterity, the belligerent wit of a Knight.

She was a famished, overzealous, virtuous Gladiator. She'd fight for scraps. She'd fight for a lion's paw. 

Snoke panted with the vitality of battle. He had not felt this young and invincible in centuries. He thrilled to it.

Rey had suffered an ugly gash along the side of her arm, but otherwise, the blood on her clothes and on her face was not her own. She also thrilled to it, though she was also disquieted by the violent instincts which had risen to the surface.

He walked up to her, wiping sweat from his young brow.

“Let me take care of that,” he said smoothly, picking up her cloth-bound elbow. Somewhere along the way, he had removed his gloves.

Rey hissed when his bare fingers brushed up against the open wound. It wasn’t just the pain, but the electricity of contact, the way his thumb pressed under her arm, halting her pulse.

He closed his eyes and furrowed his brows and she felt stinging warmth surrounding the wound, cauterizing it, sealing it shut by degrees.

She could not quite believe it. The Force dwelled in nature, in all things living, and therefore life was its domain. The Force could give one a more potent taste of life, could surge life through one's body, but to heal so well, to mend what was broken?

She felt a sudden awe for this half-man half-boy whose youth was deceptive. He had learned so much.

She wanted this; she wanted to know how to do this.

She wondered. Was it necessary to go into the pit, to descend and embrace the Dark Side in order to do it?

She didn't think so. 

A question for another time.

“Thank you,” she said when he released her hand.

Rey stared up at him with gratefulness and envy and a strange, unnamed desire. Having him close made her feel a magnetic pull.

He did not move away from her. Instead, he took a step forward, lowered his head. His fingers lingered at the side of her throat without quite touching her.

Rey inhaled sharply.

“You will never be more becoming than in this moment,” he whispered against her skin, making her shiver despite the infernal heat of battle.

Rey tilted her head up, a little dazed. His eyes were the dark mouths of the desert at night. Whole cities, whole peoples had been swallowed by sands.

She felt wanted by those sands and she wanted in return.

She wanted him to kiss her, he could tell. He sensed her arousal so thickly that his mouth watered. It would only take a movement of his head for his lips to snag hers.

But he did not want to kiss her. He wanted to devour her like victuals without romancing her. He wanted to bite her. He wanted to sink his teeth in the soft belly of her lip and drag it out, chew it, split it open, drain her like a cordial, until she fell limp into his arms. And when she was already on the way to fading, he wanted to bite her again right below the ribs - Adamic notion - and then sink his hand inside her flesh, squeeze her heart, make it stutter and congeal. Perhaps _this_ was the romance. She would flop like an exotic fish, she would arch her back in demonic ecstasy, for nearly dying makes one sing. 

The salt in his mouth would make him thirst for more.

And there would be more.

But he stepped away from her, releasing her.

Rey shuddered, disappointed and relieved. She swallowed her foolish desire until she stopped tasting it on her tongue.

Snoke stifled a chuckle. He walked away from her, affecting his own kind of shudder.

Rey contemplated it all for a moment before she remembered there were other people in the galaxy. The Rebel ships were sitting ducks for the First Order. They were being shot down as they stood here.

“Ben, you have to order them to cease fire. There’s still time to save the fleet.”

Snoke ran a hand through his apprentice’s hair - those soft, malleable locks. He tugged at them, relishing the feeling.

“There’s nothing I can do,” he said, making sure to inject his voice with palpable regret. “They won’t listen to me. By now, Hux is gathering his forces to come and seize me.” 

Rey shook her head, tears smarting in her eyes. “There’s got to be a way to stop them from killing all the Rebels.”

“It would mean more carnage,” Snoke said, fingering the saber she had generously thrown at him mid-battle. Luke Skywalker’s. How fitting. “I don’t know if we can take them all. Some of them are just following orders.”

Rey bit her lip. “Like you did.”

 _Oh, darling, foolish girl_ , he thought with a humorous sigh.

“Like me, but not like me. I’ve done what I was told and many times I _wanted_ to do it,” he remarked, for Kylo Ren must be seen as multifaceted, must be seen as he was.

“Okay,” Rey exhaled, closing her eyes. “All right. We can’t take them all. So we must return to the Rebels and help them any way we can. We need to – we need to get out of here.”

Snoke enjoyed the defeat of her shoulders, the way her hands trembled with guilt and fury at her failure to be a savior. 

He raised Skywalker’s lightsaber at eye-level and then uttered his own name.

“Snoke has a private shuttle. We might grab it before anyone else does. But I have to warn you, there’s more killing ahead.”

Rey stared at him with trepidation and he sensed the shameful combination of disgust and excitement inside her. She did not want to be drawn, but the net was all around her.

She walked towards him, balling her hands into fists.

“I’m ready.”

The trick was to know when to abandon a sinking ship.

The mummified creature he’d possessed for two centuries had become such a hole-ridden galley. Once, this crooked, wrinkled golem had been young and hale. Not as handsome or as strong as Kylo Ren, but it had served him well.

Now it was time to sail anew.

The First Order had not sunk yet, but it would, eventually. And he would be there, in the guise of a Rebel, a Knight, a Prince, or what will you, ready to take control again.

More than that, he knew he had found his next body. The girl was stronger than Ren. Her aptitude was still in its childhood, but it would grow, it would bloom, it would be vicious.

He intended to do whatever he needed in order to keep her, make her flourish, and then seize her.


End file.
